We Will Be Reborn
by Wouldyoukindly84
Summary: Different people come to Rapture for different reasons, none of them leave as they came, all are reborn. Big Daddy/Little Sister beginnings, OC, Adult Language, Adult consequences, work in progress.
1. Chapter 1

Anthony Nash came to Rapture because he was bored.

Anthony Nash came to Rapture not because ideology appealed to him on a philosophical level, hell, he could hardly manage to get through _The Fountainhead_, but because it appealed to him on a baser level. A city that was free of the moral and legislative constraints of religion and government appealed to the libertine, what possibilities awaited him when there was no holding back?

Anthony Nash came to Rapture because the war had made everyone so frightfully dull and annoying. Everyone worrying, and every topic having to do with rations or some sort of offensive maneuvering and, _have you heard what Mr. Churchill said on the wireless?_ People had stopped having fun it seemed, even the parties he attended held a dark sort of cloud over them, or some man with a cane and a story about his plane being shot down over some awful German sounding place. The rich were less rich, the poor were more poor and everyone seemed to nag him about it when he didn't care about any of it at all.

The last straw was when Lucy, the very pretty young lady he had been seeing (amongst many) had simply decided to stop seeing him and snubbing at him at any chance simply because he hadn't any really good war stories to tell. He hadn't been shot down over anywhere German sounding, and he hadn't had to stand in a hole full of ice and mud which meant he suddenly wasn't good enough for her company. The nerve!

Anthony Nash came to Rapture because he owed a lot of nasty people a rather lot of money and suddenly the family bank wasn't so open his requests for what was rightfully owed to him, by birth.

With the whole world going to hell and taking the very boring road to get there, Anthony Nash went to Rapture.

And it was more amazing then he could have ever dreamed. Outside of the magnificence of a city under water, far away from the light of the sun, the city itself was sleek and stylish. Brand new in look and feel. It glittered in the icy blue depths with a shine that needed no sunlight, that the world he left used to have in spades but had seemed to fade before his very eyes. It was a new excitement for him to feast upon, to sink his teeth and fingers into and to gorge himself upon for as long as possible, till it's siren song no longer called out to him to tempt and tease him. Some men assign the female gender to such simple things like cars or boats, measly things that they can easily possess and tame. He had done this at one point too, and until the very moment he clapped eyes on Rapture he never doubted this tradition.

Until that moment. Until Rapture rose up from the sea floor, a majestic Goddess, Amphitrite, spread out, gold and sparkling, pulsing, waiting, just waiting to be ravished into oblivion. It was a want that gripped him with an irresistible force, that inspired a madness in him so fierce that he could feel it pulse with every beat of his heart. A wild want that sunk into his bones, that gobbled up his eyes and tore it's dark, violent fingers into his gray matter.

Anthony Nash came to Rapture and Rapture did not disappoint.

There were parties, shows, loud and full of people. People who laughed and shined like the noon day sun. People who were full of ideas that even interested him and even fuller of wine and booze that set the whole place spinning around him like a fun time carousel. Such people, ladies with long limbs and coy smiles, with short hair cuts and red lips that revealed white perfect teeth, red lips made redder with wine and easy to kiss and who easily kissed back. The music was loud, the cards and games of chance came quick and easy. Fort Frolic quickly became his home away from home, away from home. If there was anything that could make Anthony Nash's head spin faster than a pretty woman it was the sound of falling change from a slot machine. Especially these machines, magical boxes, that could do no wrong, that practically rained coin through the constant wail of music. His luck had changed, he had come to the Garden of Eden, where all was sunlight and all the fruit on all the trees was ripe for his picking.

At the brightest of his days in Rapture he held the company of Sander Cohen, the wild maestro of Fort Frolic, who happily bought bottles after bottles of champagne for Anthony and his table of friends and then spent the night with them singing some of his most famous songs. The piano clanged and roared out under his fingers as the table swayed in rhythm and glee to the beat of his songs, till the company was hoarse and falling over with laughter. Even then, even after hours of drinking and song the composer screamed for, no, demanded more, more, MORE! When they had none to give, Cohen had raged, shoving the grand rolling piano and tearing at his hair, till his friends calmed him and eased him to his rooms. His energy, the energy of Rapture and the people in it seemed unending, forever, and as strong as any universal force.

Another party had him shaking the hand of none other then Andrew Ryan himself. It was the first time that Anthony Nash had actually been star struck, had been speechless in the presence of another living human, and a man for that matter. What good was a man to him? But Andrew Ryan had giving him something, had given the whole world something, a city under the waves, a garden full of endless possibilities and opportunities. Shaking his hand was like looking into the face of God, impossible and inspiring. If he hadn't been a believer before, he certainly was one now.

That had been the high point of Anthony Nash's life in Rapture. During those days life moved too fast, the arms around him a blur, one set blending into another in the blink of an eye. The liquor flowed freely, and the frenzy and the passion of the people he surrounded himself burned impossibly hot and long till it almost seemed as though he was drowning in the sea of them; burning, laughing, dancing bodies that he raced with but could not keep up with.

It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment he fell from grace, when the sun light started to withdraw from his face. Perhaps it was a moment that was incredibly clear and obvious when it happened, but he had been too stoned on sex and wine to notice it. The first notice he had of his fall was when he started to lose at the slot machines. The great big steel idols he worshiped diligently stopped responding to his prayers, and then, suddenly, the cards stopped as well. It was as if the two great gods had whispered to one another and had collectively turned their backs on him. So too did the pale and slender ladies of Rapture. Red lips no longer held kisses but instead pitying almost there smiles before looking away from him completely. It was a slow and painful dawning, the fact that he was no longer the golden boy of Rapture, that he had been cursed by the gods there, and whispers around the garden were to shun and exile him.

Even the lowest of the low sneered at him while they offered cheap liquor and shady hands of poker in a dim and dingy room. It was something, just something, all he needed was a little something, just to get him going and then he would be on top again, then he would climb and crawl back into the light and all would be well again, he would be surrounded by the heated embrace of Rapture once again.

"You ain't family," one of the men drawled at him from across the table. "You gotta ante up like everyone else."

"Apologizes, it slipped my mind, gentlemen..." There were exchanged looks, between the rough and battered men around the table as Anthony contributed his few dollars to the pot in the center. The first step in the ritual fulfilled, the cards were dealt.

Card after card slipped through hand after hand, around the table, folded and held, raised and tossed in. There was something slow churning about the game despite the speed that it was played with. The hands seemed to go on forever, and they never brought what he needed, what he wanted, driving him grit his teeth and to curl his toes into the bottoms of his shoes. Every series of cards he was given was always a card short. A king when he needed an ace, a spade when he needed a heart, coming so close to giving him what he needed but never actually giving it to him. Every dollar spent, every raise, every bluff, every fold tightened the grip around his throat. The great chain was no longer in his fist but instead around his neck closing off any air he might have left, any hope he wearily clung to despite of it all.

"You'll have to extend me just a little more credit, gentleman, I'm good for it. I have my safe right back in my room, loads of cash, we can take care of it all when the game is done." He had exhibited a carefree, lazy attitude his whole life, faking it now was as easy as breathing, even as it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so. A wave of a hand, a passing around of a cigarette case, and the men who had little money gave it to the man who had none. And as the night wore on, the man who had no money lost what he had borrowed, and the men who had given it to him, became less and less patient and less and less willing to let the game continue.

"I want my cash now, I'm sick of this shit, I've got an early shift in the morning!" The man who had called out his lack of ante earlier, the man at the head of the table with dark, constantly angry eyes, called an end to the game.

"We're in the middle of a hand! I hardly think it's fair that I don't have a -" Anthony's words were cut off with a bark of a laugh.

"Fair, this fucker don't think it's fair." The laughter that rose up around the table was hardly anything pleasant and good natured. What little there had been had long since dried up, the money, the liquor and the cards had dried up. The men around the table were calling in their marker and he had nothing to give them.

The beating they gave him next to the makeshift card table was nothing compared to the beating they gave him in his room after they had tossed it, looking for the promised safe Anthony had kept babbling about. He had hoped that in their transport from the wharf up to his rooms, someone might notice the two large, stinking thugs dragging a well dressed man through the pristine hallways of Rapture. If any eyes were about, they weren't looking out for him, the small group went unnoticed, and the well built walls and doors muffled any cries he gave out as well as the crashes of rampage that filled his room. He was alone, miles and miles away from the sun, from land, with nowhere to go, no one to turn to, with fists and feet raining down upon him like the waters that started the great flood.

There is no mercy in Rapture. There is no grace, no forgiveness. The foundations were built on the strength and brilliance of man, not kindness and gentleness. The walls were sealed to keep all of that out, to keep out help and the evil they call altruism. No one sticks their neck out for anyone else in Rapture, everyone takes for themselves, builds themselves up and when man made gods fall their worshipers vanish, their temples crumble, and no one heeds their screams.

The only mercy in Rapture is darkness, and it fell over Anthony Nash like a thick blanket, heavy and cold that smothered the burning agony he had brought down upon himself.

"There ain't nothin' here," the words of defeat if ever any were uttered. "He's flat broke, we're out time and cash what are we supposed to do now?" The eyes of the speaker turned to the leader, the man who had helped drag the dead beat back to his rooms, the man with the aggressive eyes. For a long time, the man was silent, thinking, scanning the room in case they missed something. The shit head looked fancy enough, rich enough, maybe there was a painting or something? They all looked like shit to him, copies of copies, or one of those gross Cohen pieces of shit that were hanging everywhere. Not worth the canvas they were painted on.

The realization caused him to aim another sharp kick into Anthony's gut which got the asshole to move slightly but didn't get him to make a sound which was hardly satisfying at all. Another minute or two of silence ticked by before there was a decision.

"That slant eyed doctor, he'll give money for guys like him, he looks healthy enough, right?" Indeed, Doctor Suchong had started asking for healthy, male specimens for... Something. No one asked, everyone knew that his money was good, and that's what mattered, that his money was good. A quick haul of the unconscious man to his feet and they headed for the door. It was a trek to Suchong's clinic, especially with dead weight, but that's what Rapture was made out of, hard work and grabbing opportunities.

Anthony Nash would pay off his debts to Rapture.


	2. Chapter 2

Only _certain_ kind of girls went dancing, her mama told her. Only _certain_ kinds of girls wore red on their lips and darkened their eyelashes, her mama told her. _Certain_ kinds of girls, emphasis on the word _certain_, as her mama's eyes remained dark, hard, for this serious discussion. Even talk of sinful behavior was frowned upon, it let the devil into the house, her mama said. It let the devil into your mind with whispers of temptation. Temptation to wear short skirts, to make eyes at men that weren't your husband, to drink liquor, to fall into the pit of sin, never to rise from again. What seemed innocent at first would lead down the path to wickedness and sin, and the punishment for sin is death, and no one would be spared from the wrath of God.

The war, her mama said, was proof enough of that gospel truth. That man kind had spent all of creation sinning and this was the punishment for that folly, from turning away from the truth of God's light. There were awful stories about the war, there were pictures of London bombed, children left without parents, wives without their husbands; entire families that had lost everything, including their lives. At nights they would sit next to the radio and listen to the news, never music, but the news of awful things happening in places that had foreign names, sometimes familiar names, and mama would shake her head and say that this was the end. The end of everything, the end of mankind, of humanity and the stain of wickedness it had spread across the earth. It was only a matter of time before they judgment would be brought down upon them. No one was innocent, all had sin and had fallen short of the glory of God.

Each night, in the dark, after prayers, mama's words would ring in her ears. Shutting her eyes tight couldn't stop the terrifying images of God's blazing sword of judgment cutting through the unholy, through the sinners and the damned, growing closer and closer to her as she desperately tried to hide and flee from the all knowing, the all seeing, the all powerful. In her mind she would run and run, hiding every where she could think of in order to escape the wrath of God. No matter where her mind would take her, how fast her mental feet would fly his words would always follow: "_Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD_."

_Do not I fill heaven and earth?_

When she was old enough, she stopped running from God in her mind alone and started running with her feet.

Mary Doyle stepped off on to the crowded platform after her long and tiresome trip from the surface, and was told that there was no God in Rapture. Deep beneath the dark, icy waves of the ocean deeper than mankind had ever gone before, where there was no natural light, no blue of sky, no sound of war and destruction - there was no God. No all knowing, all seeing gaze could piece through the black water that surrounded them down in this hidden location. Beneath the surface there was no sin, no fear of damnation. There was no power greater than man, she was told, no God, no dictator, was stronger than creativity and perseverance of mankind. Rapture was proof of that, wasn't it? That mankind could create, could achieve anything it wanted without help from the man in Washington or some man in the sky.

It was liberating. For the first time in her life, Mary Doyle felt free, felt full of promise and excitement that had been held back by terror and worry. This was a new start, her feet, on man made land, was a miracle, was a new day, where she was free of the oppressive gaze of God that had so long forced her to hold back. Under thick clear walls there was everything she could have ever dreamed of, parks and gardens, music halls that poured out their sound on to the floors and walls. There were beautiful dresses and handsome men who smiled at the shy little mouse haired girl who walked everywhere with her eyes wide with excitement. For the first time in her life, she felt as though she could be noticed, wanted to be noticed, and sought out the gaze, not of God but of man.

The feeling of being touched by a man was exhilarating. Rough hands, smooth hands, touches to the back of the hand, to her waist, all exciting and thrilling in a way that made her blush and tremble from the inside out with trepidation and want. Never before had she had felt such a thing, it was like fire, terrible and burning to touch but so warm and comforting when it was just close enough. She toyed with that flame, pulling in just close enough to feel it's heat run throughout her body, but never close enough to get burned. Till she fell in love.

Her lover's grip was firm, all of him was; from his lips, to his body and the way that he held her. His mouth was like the strongest liquor, a few presses of her lips to his and she was gone, the world spinning, the stars, billions of miles away fell down to earth to cling to her hair and eyes under the power of his kisses. He took her everywhere, from each end of the city of Rapture to the other, they ran and played like the metropolis was theirs, like no one else inhabited the city under the sea. He took her, Mary Doyle, everywhere, they went, her skirts bunched up around her waist, her head back and his intoxicating lips at her throat. Her body reacted to him in ways she had never thought it could, with flush skin, and moans that were stifled with her teeth to her bottom lip.

He fit within her perfectly, over and over, in between kisses and in dark corners of hallways and in the last seat of train cars when the rest of the world was all asleep. Her fingers would disappear into his dark hair and his fingers would disappear into her, over and over till the world crumbled into the ocean around them and her wet splashed all over him.

The last night she saw him was the first time she had seen him in such disheveled state, so frantic and out of his mind, so uncollected. He clung to her, and kissed her and kissed her again and asked her if she loved him, and a thousand times she replied, yes, yes, she loved him. She loved him with all her heart and soul and that she would always do so. Mary Doyle begged him to tell her what was wrong, to tell her what she could do to save him. His arms around her, his breath reeking of liquor and cigarettes as he said nothing but kissed her. All those potent, powerful kisses, taking her breath away, and bending her down on to the bedding as his hands stripped away her pretty dress and her pretty underthings, laying her bare for his eyes.

It was fast, their coupling, not eloquent or romantic, but desperate and passionate. The heat of his breath, the weight of his body on top of hers, the press of his cock into her, and her body aching, skin singing and tingling with the sinful pleasure of it all. The forever feeling of their time locked and intertwined together lasted long after they had finished, panting, sated, like wild animals as the cool of the bedroom air washed over them. Even after, he still clung to her, like she was the only thing keeping him afloat, a drowning man lost at sea, alone and steadily sinking with the same surety as the sun rising and setting. Soon after he quietly untangled himself from her limbs, from her bed clothes and got dressed. With a soft kiss good bye, he slipped from her room and from this world, lost, somewhere in the empty darkness of Rapture and it's surroundings.

_Certain_ girls, her mama never told her, got in _certain_ ways. There was never an explanation of what happened to _certain_ girls outside of the fact that they were sinners and quite clearly going to hell. Mama never told her about missed periods, and getting sick before morning breakfast and having to go to the doctor to have him tell her that she is pregnant.

It took her forever to get into Doctor Suchong's free clinic, the only clinic she could afford, and it took him less time to tell her what was wrong with her than the time it took to get her in this way. Where was she to go? What was she to do with this sudden news? The little Asian man looked at the sobbing woman in his clinic with a sort of cold disinterest. What was it to him that this woman managed to get herself knocked up with such a parasite? What a pain to have to deal with such humanity on a daily basis. He gave an annoyed sigh for her when she asked for a tissue before offering it over to her so she could rudely blow her nose in his presence.

When the crying stop he gave her two options, a termination or, if she carried to term and the child was a girl she could give it up to a Little Sister's Orphanage (sponsored by Fontaine Futuristics.) There she could have free room and board and education, she would be well taken care of, Doctor Suchong assured her, though his face and tone hardly convinced her of his claims. What if it was a boy? Well then, the doctor's narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug before he turned away from her, telling her to send in the next patient from over another apathetic shrug.

Mary Doyle gave birth and called the screaming, bloody, vernix covered child, Doris. Actually, the midwife that helped her through the birth named the child, Mary Doyle, her face red and wet with sweat and tears, wanted nothing to do with the thing that had lived inside of her for nine months. The thing she was sure was responsible for her lover's disappearance. She hadn't been able to find him in her searching, in her pleading with people for information. She had posted his face up on one of the huge walls in Apollo Square only to have nothing come of it. In her head she was sure that he had found out and that he had run away from her and the thing that was ruining her body.

The midwife thought it was a rather fitting name for the dark haired little girl. It was one of the first births she had the pleasure to attend and hopefully it wouldn't be the last, children were the future, Fontaine said so in all of his ads and she certainly agreed with him. Even if this child was delivered to a mother but no father, what a shame! Many girls had gotten mixed up in so many wicked things down in the bottom of the sea - but that was hardly any of her business. The child was cleaned and swaddled before given back to her mother with some soft instructions on how to care for Doris and herself. Mary Doyle said nothing, but stared at the opposing wall with an empty gaze. She had lost everything in coming to Rapture, she had it all but it had slipped through her fingers like sand. She was alone, empty and hungry, with nothing to fill her except the icy feeling of loneliness and abandonment that seemed to run up and down her throat, only to settle in the pit of her stomach. Running from God had left her more scared and alone than she had ever been on the topside, and in her time of need and agony there was no one to hear her cries.

God had no place in Rapture, it had pulled itself far away the love and warmth of his love in order to enjoy it's depravity and wickedness. To delight in sin without punishment. There was never any sin without punishment, her mama told her. In the empty and loneliness of her room, with the wails of her child ringing in her ears she thought of words that she had not thought about in so very long: '_Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me._ '

In the stillness of Rapture, when all seemed to be asleep, she stole from her room, bundle pressed close to her chest, through the streets, to one of the cheerfully lit and welcoming Little Sister's Orphanage. There, with no eyes watching, she left the infant and a note with no explanation but a name, Doris.

With her sin desperately concealed, Mary Doyle, went in search of God.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm not, I'm not supposed to be here! There's been a mistake, my name – please check, I'll give you my name, you'll see!" How many times could he say the same thing over and over and still not be heard? He was beginning to think that perhaps they couldn't hear him, that no matter how loud he shouted or how much he banged against the solid door of his cell that all that came out was silence. It's a terrifying thought, being invisible, being mad. It was another thought that entered his head that perhaps he was supposed to be in this place.

Whatever this place was, he still wasn't sure.

A jail? Prison?

An asylum for the insane?

Hell, he was most certainly, definitely in hell but all Hells have different names, not all the sinners go to the same one, they've got to be screened beforehand.

This was Hell's waiting room.

Everything ached, his head, his throat, his body. From top to bottom, from inside to out, there wasn't a place on him that wasn't full of hurt. He blamed the head and the throat on himself, the body seemed to be remains of the beating that those thugs had put on him. That's the last sort of coherent memory he has of a place outside of this one. His rooms, the thick carpet that muffled foot falls but was entirely too rough on a bruised and swelling cheek. He doesn't even care, he misses that stupid, idiotic, scratchy rug.

"I have rights!" He shouted through the tray slot. "You can't detain me hear without cause! I know my rights, I'm not mad!" You know, just in case that was in question.

He couldn't be in jail, he was still in his clothes from that night, tux sweated through, disheveled, bow tie undone and taken – he has no idea where it went but it wasn't there when he woke up. Maybe they thought he'd use it on himself, or on someone else, but no one else has been remotely close enough for him to use it on.

He started kicking the door again, smashing his heels into it over and over, the dull thump of it echoing down what he assumed was a corridor outside of his cell. "WHEN SKIES ARE CLOUDY AND GRAY THEY'RE ONLY GRAY FOR A DAYYYYYY. SO WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS AND DREAM YOUR TROUBLES AWAYYYYYYY."

It was one of the only ways he had found to pass the time, horrible renditions of various popular songs and often misremembered lyrics. It hardly mattered, no one obviously paid attention to the noise he was making, his plight. Which meant he had to sing louder, till his voice gave out. He would have continued on with this plan when a very faint clicking sound caught his attention. Pausing he stopped breathing to listen to the steady click, click, click coming from – somewhere. He craned his head, scanning the room before climbing unsteadily up to his feet. After a thorough inspection Nash found what he believed to be the cause of the clicking. An odd sort of spigot sticking out of the ceiling of his cage, he stared at it while on tip toe head cocked to the side thoughtfully. What the hell was that there for?

While in mid contemplation of the clicking and the thing in the ceiling, the spigot released a fine mist down over his face, out of instinct he pulled back sputtering and trying to wipe the wet from his face. Not that it smelled or anything, not that he could tell but whatever it was he didn't want it all over his damn face. That was his last thought, as he sank down on to his knees, groggy, the room suddenly spinning like a deranged carnival ride lurching him to the left and then to the right before lurching right up at him.

He missed the scratchy carpet of his rooms when his face planted on to the cold concrete of his room.

It turns out that Anthony Nash had indeed been dragged and held captive in Hell's waiting room. He had been inspected, processed and charged, to be moved on to the hell he had been assigned that started with a cold, stainless steel table, leather straps and a glaring light. One of his last, lucid, fully functioning thought was of what an odd sort of taste he had in his mouth, that's before they lobotomized him.

"António Egas Moniz, had very ingenious idea when studying the mentally unbalanced. To destroy fixed arrangements of cellular connections in the brain, and particularly those which are related to the frontal lobes." Doctor Suchong was going on again, he was always going on about things, some of them she even knew more about then him.

"The study of frontal lobotomies have been well documented before Moniz, Doktor. I am well aware of his work on the subject," Brigid Tenenbaum finally spoke up hoping the slender Asian man would get to his point. While the man was fascinating in some regards, in others he was annoying barbaric and patronizing. The dark haired man made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat, glaring daggers at the German. She lacked the sight to see the big picture, everything to her was genetics.

"Suchong simply take the procedure further, more removal of the frontal lobes. Same man, same behavior, but modified, easily influenced, easily to control," he explained as though he was a child which earned him a muffled eye roll from the thin woman. "Case studies have shown that not all behave in such a way, some patients exhibited increased violence and aggression. That could severely hinder your attempt -" she was cut off with a sharp motion of Suchong's hand.

"More aggression is good, very good, we want aggression for Big Daddy. They must protect the little sister, no need for passive, gentle behavior if provoked! What remains can be conditioned with ADAM, if no conditioning helps they will be eliminated." The little man was useless, impossible to talk to when he got it into his head, the procedure was completely unnecessary in Tenenbaum's view. "You could just get the same results without it with less risk of infection and damage to the test subject's motor skills. You want a man who is strong, who can move on his own, not potatoes. This procedure is too risky." In the end, it hardly mattered, did it make a difference if they had one more dead body on their hands?

"Test your theory out, it makes little difference to me how you use your subjects," she continued after a moment of pause. It was better to push him aside then to argue with him, it was a waste of breath and gave her nothing but a headache, in the end he was going to do it anyway. Tenenbaum reached for her cigarettes as the long faced man rubbed his hands together with something akin to glee. "First test subject all ready and waiting for Suchong! It will be interesting to see how it responds to ADAM."

The procedure did not make him numb to the agony that consumed him during the transitioning process. While his reactions to it were delayed, he felt very burst of skin and every raw lesion that reached out to grab a hold of the heavily weighted suit he was permanently sealed into. His skin was melting away, fusing into the new suit of armor he had been assigned to. There was no memory of screaming, only pain, agony, misery, as his body and brain reacted to dose after dose of pure ADAM while his body grew and grew to fill it's new mould. Muscles never before used for physical labor swelled to grotesque size in order to accommodate the shape and the weight of the suit that was now his life, his body bent, warped, twisted into perfection. Bone cracked and snapped, the noises ringing sickly in his ears but not even remotely registering as sounds actually coming from him.

All there was, all there ever would be, is pain. Fire shooting through every part of him, aches and hurt in places that never registered in his previous life. It consumed him like the suit consumed him, it kept him living when there was nothing else to, it fed him in a sick and twisted way that his brain could not understand. Nothing about this he could understand, not that he ever thought about it. It was like trying to remember your name while someone was pulling your teeth out of your head with pliers.

The only relief is when the doses of Adam stopped and he was examined. The doctor with the thick, dark glasses seemed to dance around him, testing his strength and his response time. Slow, but adequate, and that was the issue, that he wouldn't be able to function and move like the rest of them. He was photographed and sometimes there was x-rays taken of him, which he never saw the results of. The whole world moved around him in a slow way, a sort of rounded way sometimes when he wasn't looking at it quite right and it seemed impossible to get used to, especially when the helmet was put on him. He had no idea what kind of helmet it was, only that it sealed and once it was, there was yet another round of ADAM injections and the agony began all over again.

"Very interesting development at the lab today. Patient that undergo frontal lobotomy appears to be significantly affected by ADAM. Motor skills are improving daily and the damage Suchong caused with operation beginning to mend. It seem that lobotomy effects only noticeable before ADAM, not after." He paused in his recording and thought about this for a long time. "It seem extra step unnecessary, simply a waste of time and will discontinue use. STEP DEEMED UNNECESSARY! NOT BECAUSE GERMAN BITCH LADY SAY NOT TO!"

In the end, he became oblivious to the pain. It may have stopped after the helmet was sealed on, it may have never stopped but at some point it no longer made a difference to him. When they tore out his vocal chords and replaced them with a voice that even he didn't understand, there was no flinch, no acknowledgement of pain or rejection of the procedure, no attempt to fight back. As the days progressed he came to the slow realize that he had been changed into something impossible. They had transformed him, they had birthed from him a new creature that possessed guts that were comprised of him but didn't seem to be him, and didn't even remotely resemble his previous shape. What was his previous shape? Who was he before? What was he? The questions flickered across ADAM soaked damaged brain cells like a smooth stone across a pond surface. Neurons twitched to life with various briefly held thoughts but then let them go just as quickly as they appeared, little idea fire flies swelling to light in the dark only to dim shortly thereafter. There was something enjoyable about that, the fizzling out of questions and thoughts that left a warm, peaceful glow across what remained of his mangled mind.

There was nothing troubling about not holding on to a thought, not making a decision on his own, listening to instructions and following them effortlessly, without question. No part of him sought to free himself of the cage he had been pressed and grown into. No searching for answers, no long and wistful looks back at an unclear past. There was just the Little Sisters, the need to protect them, to make sure no one ever hurt them so they could play and gather. There was no noise except their voice, no feelings except to protect, no panic except at a scream.

And Big Daddy didn't mind it one bit.


	4. Chapter 4

It took Doris a number of years to realize that most children did not grow up in a place with lots of other children with no mother and father. From as early as she could remember this was how life was, with lots of other kids to play with, with a big bedroom with lots of bunk beds where they could all share space. She liked it. She liked the noise of brothers and sisters running around, sometimes laughing, always talking, it made her feel - warm, safe. As if the silence held something disturbing and scary that she couldn't give a name to but could feel throughout her entire small body. It wasn't something that she was entirely conscious of, she just knew that she didn't like it, and when lights out came that was the worst part of the day. That's when the gloom settled and odd noises leaked from the darkness, creaks, groans, she hated those the most, it was as if her world was slowly breaking all around her and that one day it would all come crashing down on top of her. There was other sounds however that she liked when darkness fell, the soft clicks and low songs that she heard, that she had no name for but focused on, they always seemed to drive away the impending doom noises. Those were the noises that lulled her to sleep.

When the songs seemed far away there were always other beds to climb into. There were so many friends to make at her home. Some of them were really awful and mean, and others she loved very deeply, both her brothers and her sisters. The boys had separate places to sleep, which was really rotten when she became particularly sweet on a boy named Sam who was about a year or two older than her. He had taught her a great many games like jacks and how to play marbles, he could draw as well and when she told him of the noises she would hear at night he drew what he thought they must look like.

"What are those?" She pointed to the blue appendages springing from a rather big, round, body that he had made.

"Wings of course, all pretty noises come from angels." A rather serious and obvious explanation if he did say so himself.

"And those?" The yellowish dots in the background of the paper, though they were sometimes other colors too.

"Stars! Angels live up in the stars and that's how they can see everything. My mum used to tell me all about them and how they were all around us. If you look out the windows you can see the stars too, next time we go out I'll show you." That's the problem with children staffed education, it's all rather muddled and not always a hundred percent accurate. Sam had never actually seen stars, but in the dark of the water that surrounded them it seemed that the lights that twinkled were heavenly bodies, and not just lights from department store windows.

So that's how Doris learned about stars, and that's how she began to learn about mums and dads. If Sam had a mum then she must have one too, right? There were so many to choose from actually, if she thought about it. There was a mom for playing and sleeping, Ms. Joyce, and there was a mom for eating and sickness too, that was Mrs. Barker! They were both very nice, and sometimes other moms came in to talk to all of her brothers and sisters and then there was a mom, Mrs. Douglas, that took the older brothers and sisters away too, that's when they got adopted. After Sam's talk of his mom she began to address all the ladies as mom as well, it seemed to her that they roughly fit the description of Sam's mom and therefore that was their name - even though she had been told before to call them Ms. Joyce, and Mrs. Barker. It took a number of addresses in this manner before she was quietly pulled over to the side by Ms. Joyce.

"Doris, honey, you know I'm not your mom don't you? I care for you very much but I'm not your mom, I have to ask you to call me by my real name." A soft, warm hand on a little shoulder as very serious brown eyes of the older woman peered into the confused gaze of the child's.

"But you do things a mom does," this is all so confusing but she did like the soft touch on her shoulder - not a whole lot of soft touches at her home.

"I take care of you, like a mother should have but I'm not actually your mom." It was hard to try and reason with a small human, they usually don't understand and she doesn't want to be cross or mean with them but there needs to be boundary lines otherwise it hurt when they left.

"Who's my mom then? Is it Mrs. Barker?" Perhaps it was, Mrs. Barker hadn't told her to stop calling her mom so maybe that was it. Though there was a bit of disappointment if that was the case, Mrs. Barker could be loud and mean sometimes.

"Heavens no! You must call Mrs. Barker by her real name too." Ms. Joyce didn't know how that old bat had a husband, the idea of her reproducing made her shudder. "We don't know who your mom is, not yet, but we'll find one for you very soon." She went on to assure the wee little girl, before hesitantly reaching out to give her a hug. One of the doctors at the surgery had explained to Ms. Joyce the theory of never getting to close, never being too affectionate with children, one night when the doctor had taken her out for drinks. It was all about teaching self reliance, and not letting the tots get too soft and whiny, it was important to have them stand on their own two feet and not be dependent on hugs and girly nonsense. That's how you raise a generation of strong, competent men and women he assured her.

It was tough though, to see that little girl look so confused and disappointed in finding out the awful truth.

That was the day that Doris hugged back and when she learned that she didn't have a mother or a father, that she wasn't like those kids that she saw playing at the park on their trips out.

It wasn't so very long after these life lessons that Sam was taken away, they said his mother had come back to get him. That was really great to hear because Sam had told Doris that his mother was very sick when he last saw her, that she slept all the time and everyone was sad when they were around her. She must have gotten better.

It wasn't until another older girl named Kristy came along did Doris find out the awful truth of her situation, of the situation for all of her brothers and sisters. She was a mean girl, an awful girl, this Kristy, who terrorized everyone when she arrived. Doris was not sad to see her go shortly after she arrived. Perhaps it was because Kristy knew so much that she was awful, a tall, constantly dirty sort of girl that took things that didn't belong to her, and didn't share either. She would push the boys and pull hard on the hair of the girls that she didn't like, which appeared to be all of them. It was Kristy who explained what they were all doing there, why they didn't have moms or dads.

"You weren't wanted," she told the group one night when it was lights out and they were all supposed to be asleep. Kristy sat on one of the top bunks, holding a flash light she had stolen out of the teacher's office. "All your moms and dads hated you and didn't want you any more so they gave you to these people. They don't like you either but they get paid to look after you, I know because my granny told me when we were on a walk one time."

This was very troubling information. It had never entered Doris's head that she wasn't wanted, it simply was that this was her life situation and she rather liked it, all the brothers and sisters she had gained over the years. She didn't like the idea that someone could not want them, most of them were nice and kind. Sally wet the bed sometimes, but that's because she had bad dreams, and she had become better over with time.

"If no one comes to pick you up after a couple of years then they put you out on the streets and you starve to death! The rats eat your eyes and your stomach, I saw 'em do that once, crawling all over some poor bastard down by the docks." Kristy sounded pleased with this treasure of information and was even more pleased with the gasps from the darkness from the surrounding bunks. Until someone started to cry. It was hard to tell who was crying in the dark, or why they were crying, there was a lot of upsetting information that had just been given to them and no one was sure if it was really true or not which could be the most scary part about it all.

"Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear your crying, you annoying little piece of shit." The anger and the language was almost more terrifying than what the older girl claimed was the truth. None of the children had heard such anger before, such vulgarity and it got Doris shaking hard under her blanket as she watched the flashlight bob down from the top bunk and shine over the cots to seek out the sobbing party. It eventually landed on it's victim, poor Sally, she was always scared of something and these stories had just sent her over the edge. Fists and flash light came down upon the poor girl as did the threats and demands. "Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear any of your tears, you brought this on yourself!"

That just made the sobs louder, harder, and from under her blanket Doris silently begged Sally to be silent. Begged herself to do something about the crying and the beating but her limbs were stuck, her heart had turned to ice, paralyzed by fear all she could do was silently cry and wish it would all go away. It was uncertain what happened first, the silence of the cries or Kristy's arm getting tired, probably the latter. At least the shouting had stopped and it sounded like the beating had ceased as well, leaving the whole room emotionally exhausted, terrified and sniffling in the dark. It had been the worst thing to ever happen to the group and none of them knew how to handle it, even Doris, and she felt herself to be pretty smart and competent. All she felt now was fear and a great sense of guilt, shame, that she had done nothing, that some bully had come into their house and made it unsafe and horrible.

When the flashlight clicked off, Doris quietly crept from her bed and scampered across the cold floor to the other side, to Sally's bed. The young girl continued to sniffle and weep, while balled up under her blanket that held that suspiciously tangy, sharp sent of urine. No one could blame her, especially not Doris. She behaved a bit like Ms. Joyce, wiping the weeping girl off with the clean part of the blanket before making her strip and giving her a new pair of underwear and nightgown.

"You can sleep with me tonight," she whispered to the trembling girl before taking her back to her bed. Where she hugged her and told her about the songs in the dark and the angels and the stars that were right outside their windows. Then she told the still sniffling girl that it would be all okay. That was the day she told her first lie.

No one was sad when Kristy was taken away.

The cruel girl's words still haunted her even though she was no longer there. How many years did she have till she was given up and kicked out? Would she starve out on the streets? Would no one want her? She was a good girl, she never got in trouble, and she knew how to read some and spell some, and some kids didn't know any of that at all. All of a sudden it became very important that she find a mom and a dad to take her in, she couldn't last on the streets, she couldn't be away from her brothers and sisters either but if she had to choose between the two she would choose a mom and a dad - not to be eaten by rats.

It was on the eve of her sixth birthday when she was chosen to be adopted. Another woman who everyone knew as Mrs. Douglas, had sat her down and explained that they had found a mother and father for her and that the very next day she would be given over to them. They were a very nice family and were looking for a young girl to call their very own. The news brought a relief that she had never felt before, a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she felt happy for the first time in a very long time. It would be hard, leaving her brothers and sisters but it was for the best, soon they would get parents too and then they could live in real houses and play in the parks all the time together. It would be great!

She was full of smiles when she was set back to play with the other children, she gave them the news first thing. There was a general spirit of happiness in the group, most of the kids were happy when the others found parents to take them, it was necessary to put on a good face with the hope that one day the same would happen to them. There was sadness too, lots of hugs, many hugs, which became a sort of currency among the children over the last couple of years. It was exciting and Doris was hopeful as much as she was anxious about meeting her new parents. Would they really like her? Would they love her and let her call them mom and dad? Was he handsome and she pretty? What would happen if they didn't like her and they sent her back? A number of questions and anxieties ran through her mind that night, even the angel songs couldn't soothe her into sleep, not for a very long time anyway, or that's how it felt to her.

The next morning Doris was given a very pretty dress, her hair was combed and put up into a pony tail, they even gave her beautiful black patent leather shoes and white socks. Never before had she been given such beautiful, nice clothing before. One last round of good bye's and she was lead from her home of six years to a brand new home.

This one sterile.

This one lonely and terrifying.

This one life altering.

This one beautiful.

The injection was to make sure she wasn't sick, that she was healthy. That's what Doris was told, but after it was given to her she didn't feel very well. She felt sick, dizzy, hot all over and everything seemed to get really blurry and fuzzy around her. It reminded her of the time that she had the flu and she had to sleep away from everyone else and all she could do was lay still and throw up. Maybe she had the flu again, maybe since she had the flu she wouldn't be able to go with her new parents. The thought crushed her and as the room began to darken around her and her eyelids became impossibly heavy, she tried hard to hide the fact. Scrawny arms wrapped around herself tight and she tucked her chin into her chest so the pretty blue fabric of her dress could catch her terrified tears as she waited for it all to be over.

It was hard to tell what happened next. All she knew is that she had to have been finally adopted, because when she woke up everything looked so much more different than it had before. Her stomach hurt a little bit, but the prettiest ladies that she had ever seen started giving her magic medicine to make the pain go away. This is what having a mom and dad must be like, there was no other cause that Doris could see. Life was full of eloquently dressed lords and ladies, and she was surrounded by beautiful white floors and walls so bright that it almost hurt her eyes, sometimes the walls were thick with beautiful velvet drapes that were the softest thing she had ever felt in her whole life.

In this gilded new world she was taught many things. There were four main lessons that she was taught amongst the marble walls and gold that shone like fire.

One was the hidey holes. They were everywhere and she could grab at them and climb up into them, they were magic portals that could take her anywhere in the world that she wanted. To fancy places with ceilings a million stories high that glittered with diamonds and stars, that would sometimes fall all around her while she danced in their glory.

When you have a mother and father, Doris learned, you had to gather. Sometime angels would be sleeping and when they were she had to carefully pull all their light from them. She could see it pulsing in them, glowing throughout their body before settling most brightly in their belly. Doris was so very good at gathering from the angels that they never woke up when she did it. She made a game from it, if they woke up while she was easing the light from them she would lose the game but if they didn't, if they kept sleeping away, peaceful and happy, she won. Doris never lost a game, ever!

The first time she ever met her dad was the happiest day in her life. He was beautiful. Tall and gold with wings that let him move effortlessly anywhere he wanted. She would hold his hand and they would go everywhere together, great, grand adventures in parks and down long rose petal strewn streets. He was kind and gentle, and he would scoop her up and let her ride on his shoulders so she could reach up and touch the brilliance and loveliness from the roof tops or spin around in the rose petals that rained down around her. He was everything she could ever want. He listened to her stories and would tell some in return and he was never, ever far away from her. He never left her, never was disappointed in her, always loved her, and she loved him in return. He was always close. She learned that she could never go anywhere without him, ever.

There were angels all around her, but it was important to know which angels that she could gather from and which ones she could not. The angels that danced around, that rolled and made funny jerky motions on the floor, those were ones Doris couldn't gather from, they weren't ready yet. She almost got one once, it hadn't sang any songs or floated away and so she thought it was sleeping. It wasn't ready yet, but it turned out to be okay in the end, because her daddy stepped up and set things right for her like he always did, because he loves her. She was upset afterward, on that first mistake, but he took her down to look at the stars in the dark sky and let her ride on his shoulder - and everything was better after that.

Having a mom and dad was the best thing ever. Sometimes, when she thought back to her life before, so very, very far away, she hoped that all of her brothers and sisters got moms and dads too.


	5. Chapter 5

They all look the same to him. The little girls in his care. Their dresses are all the same and their faces are all the same, sometimes they have different colored hair, that he notices, sometimes anyway. His job isn't to pay attention to dark hair or light hair, it's to watch the scenery around them to make sure that the girl is safe. Most of the time it's easy, no one wants to mess with him.

He's big, at least in his reflection on the glass walls that keep the city warm and dry he looks big.

Is that him?

He turns left, and the image follows. He turns to the right and the reflection does the same.

That's him.

Did he always look like that?

The thought flickers and darts away like the passing school of fish right outside. He likes looking at the fish, they are pretty colors and they move so quickly. There is another reflection in the glass, the little one that is standing by his side. She keeps saying odd things to him, he isn't sure if they don't make sense because of him or because of her, but that's not uncommon these days.

She calls herself Doris.

A lot.

Has she been following him in the glass? She turns to the left and he turns to the left, she turns to the right and he lumbers along with her and that makes her shriek with laughter. A scrawny arm lifts and with a squeak of metal he lifts his arm as well which makes her grin. The hand waves on that lifted arm and very awkwardly he waves back, the drill for a hand doesn't make for good waving, but she seems to love it, her grin dissolves into giggles. She has a nice laugh, he decides, he doesn't hear a lot of laughter.

"You're the best, Daddy-o! Let's go!"

That's nice, people don't call him the best any more. He doesn't think they ever did actually – oh look, a whale. Doris spots it too and points up toward the massive mammal that is lazily floating by and tries to mimic the noises she hears when it does.

"Oooo, ooo, oooo… Such pretty singing, such pretty songs, my favorite songs!"

And then she skips away, leaving him to follow along, big and slow, like the whale. He can make songs too, the odd sort of call and song that comes when he tries to speak. Can his songs be her favorite if he makes them right? He knows a whole bunch of songs… Doesn't he?

The streets are empty, that's mainly when they go out, when the internal clock of the city declares it's bedtime for the masses. Not everyone goes to be though, so there are stragglers, but few, and they tend to steer clear of any big beasts and little girls they see walking together – and rightfully so, very few people actually survive an angry encounter with him. Somewhere, in his brain, he wonders if he always killed, if he always destroyed, if that's the way it has to be.

How do people know when it's bedtime in Rapture? It's never light out.

They go to dark places to find what Doris needs. He wonders if she gets scared, if she doesn't like what she has to do. She doesn't seem to mind, she seems happy to skip and jump singing along with him till she gathers fluid from that great big needle of hers. It glows, the fluid she collects. It reminds him of her eyes, of his eyes.

In the middle of her second gather something behind them topples over, a set of crates, boxes of some sort, and he swivels around to view the damage. He wasn't the one that knocked them over. As big as he is he handles himself pretty well, not that he could ever go out dancing, but he doesn't knock things over as much as he used to, he understands his size.

The knocker is a man, they are all just a man, just a woman, he doesn't notice any features, any sort of distinguishing characteristics because nothing about these people are significant to him outside of the fact that they may or may not present a threat to his charge. The man staggers leaning over like a ship about to topple before staggering and regaining his balance. It must have been in the lean when the man spotted Doris.

(That's her name, she says it a lot. He remembers because she says it a lot.)

"What ya doin' in the shadows, deary?" A hand reaches out, palm open, unsteady and the voice reaches out with it as well. What does this man hope to accomplish? Between him and Doris (that's her name) stands a great beast of a thing that is staring at him with the glowing face, a face that is gradually moving from green to yellow. He doesn't like this, not one bit, this individual reaching out to his little girl, so he moves, knocking the hand away with his body and putting himself more directly in the path of this human.

He can hear more than feel the sound of feet and hands on his back, climbing up him in order to get to higher ground.

"Now, now, get off that big monster, ya hear? That's not safe, not at that great height. Come with me and I'll take you home…"

The hand reaches out again and he can hear a voice, he can hear Doris. "NO."

And that's all he needs to hear.

The sharp tip of the drill, with enough force, can easily penetrate through a living human being. That trauma alone isn't necessarily enough to kill. ADAM, he has seen that word on signs, heard the announcements, are making people stronger and faster – he knows because he's seen the posters with men with big muscles. That's how he knows, not because he generally gauges how much it takes to kill people, that's not something that enters his oddly shattered mind.

The penetration isn't enough. Turning the drill on? That is enough. The whirling starts and shortly there after a sickening squishing cracking noise follows when innards, guts and ribs get caught up in the blades that serve as his hand. Sometimes they scream. Sometimes, if they are stunned enough, they don't scream at all, just sort of gurgle and splatter.

Doris screams this time, "get 'em! Get 'em, Mr. B!"

He gets 'em, and when he is done gettin' 'em, he lets the whirling drill stop before a flick of the wrist dislodges the body from him so it can slump to the ground. Someone else can deal with it now, it is no longer of any interest to him.

It's an interest to Doris though, she climbs down his massive front, hand over feet, nimble, quick, and makes her way over to the slowly cooling form to gathering what she needs. He doesn't like to watch her work, so he looks away and clicks and moans his song in an attempt to cover up the unsettling noises made by the tiny girl.

Doris hums along.


End file.
